Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Thanks To Bush, U.S. Has Little Moral Authority To Lecture Russia Now

By Manifesto Joe

Morally, it was easier, before Bush. The U.S. never exactly had a spotless record on international (or domestic) aggression, but there were usually ample rationalizations to which one could point. In 2008, there are few rationalizations left, so it sounds ludicrous for American officials to try to scold Russia over the invasion of neighboring Georgia.

Until Il Doofus and the Neocons engineered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were usually at least some convoluted reasons trotted out as to why the U.S. did certain unsavory things, and the reasons even held up as folklore. (Yes, I know there are still plenty of morons who think Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks, but for now let's confine the debate to participants who can actually think.)

Let's review some history. War with Spain in 1898 was supposed to have been precipitated in part by the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, though in hindsight it's far-fetched that Spain had anything to do with that. Cuba was very near, and home to many U.S. interests, so with an insurrection there was a great opportunity to kick Spaniard ass and steal some colonies. We made a casino/plantation/whorehouse out of Cuba for 60 years, and killed a million Filipinos while subjugating their country.

Later, our Marines were in Nicaragua so many times, chasing Sandino and his ilk around, that they should have just renamed the place Camp Lejeune South. We violated sovereign territory down that direction as often as United Fruit Co. could think of a reason.

There are those who think of the Vietnam War as a flat-out invasion of Vietnam by the U.S. The rationale was, of course, that it was part of the larger Cold War against communism. That was the argument that die-hards still cling to today -- the reason it was supposed to be OK to prop up a succession of puppet autocracies in the south, doggedly pursue a war that killed some 3 million Vietnamese, poison the countryside for generations and divide our own country for -- yes, generations. We wuz a-fightin' common-ism.

Let's see -- there were CIA-engineered or CIA-aided regime changes in countries like Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973) and others. There were invasions of Panama, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos ...

So far, I'm just hitting "high" points that go back to 1898. It goes back further. There was a war with Mexico that made it possible for me and my forebears to reside in this paradise of the Lone Star State, under American protection. And then, there were those pesky Comanches who once lived just about where I sit, long before Hernando Cortes was a gleam in his daddy's eye. You generally have to drive up to Lawton, Oklahoma to see a live Comanche now, and they look pretty damned depressed, what's left of them.

Not to belabor this -- but the U.S. really didn't have all that damn much moral authority on the world stage B.B. (Before Bush) Arguably, we had our own holocausts, our own wars of conquest, our own slaughters and subjugation of peoples. I won't even start on slavery.

But, at certain points in the 20th century, America seemed to stand tall. We led the alliance that defeated German Nazism, and also Japanese and Italian fascism. The folly of Vietnam aside, we led a very long fight against Stalinist communism in an eerie new kind of war, and won. After a century of post-slavery Jim Crow, we reformed this society's racist heritage to such an extent that our next president may be a man of mixed race. There is much to be proud of here.

A lot has changed since 2003. When Il Doofus and his accomplices manufactured reasons for an invasion of Iraq, they all but destroyed what was left of U.S. moral authority on the world stage. A lot of people recalled that Saddam Hussein was our ally in the '80s, and that we even supplied him with the WMDs he used on the Kurds. Just what made Saddam so alarmingly evil to us, 15 years after? Perhaps it was all that oil he was sitting on, and that we couldn't get to as long as he was there.

That was an invasion of a sovereign nation, albeit a dictatorship, with flimsy rationale that have been discredited and perhaps even exposed as deliberate lies. About a million people and counting have died as a direct result, and the number of refugees can't be accurately estimated.

Now, George W. Bush musters enough chutzpah to say something like, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people."

First, one could question whether the latter part of that sentence even describes the contemporary United States. But given the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the continued U.S. occupation, can a sane, reasonably informed person think that most of the world even begins to take him seriously?

One thing is certain: Vladimir Putin and his puppet successor as Russian prez do not. I've been convinced for years that Putin and his wife tell Bush jokes in private. Just imagine what the jesting is like now.

2 comments:

Not only does the U.S. have little moral authority to lecture Russia, but thanks to Bush's deficits, we really have to be careful what we say to Russia these days.This is because, in recent years, thanks to high oil prices, Russia has amassed an eye-popping $600 billion in foreign exchange reserves (behind only China and Japan).Given that the U.S. has the biggest deficits of any nation in world history, we depend on capital surplus nations like Russia to finance our debt these days.Therefore, even if we had the moral authority to speak out, we will be very careful in watching what we say to Russia, a nation that now has the power to deal our economy a severe blow.

Junior, with his lies, invasions and idiotic pretenses that we're fighting some kind of war on terrorism in Iraq has turned the U.S. into a paper tiger. His demands, and the saber rattling of McCain are hollow and embarrassing in light of the fact that King George didn't hesitate to invade two other, smaller countries. That he would display his arrogance by demanding that Russia cease doing what he, himself, has done, is so typical of his kind of empty rhetoric.

I was somewhat amused tonight, watching Countdown with Rachel Maddow filling in for Keith Olbermann, to hear the list of Republicans who are going to skip the Republican Convention this year. I think it not only signals their contempt for Shrub and Cheney, but also their dislike and mistrust of John McCain.

All the muscle-flexing being done by Dubya this week is nothing more than trying to act tough, and not many people on this planet are dumb enough to believe it really means something. He is not about to tackle someone his own size. Bullies never do.

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"I consider myself a reasonably tough person. But if you waterboarded me enough times, I would probably sign my house and car over to you and confess to the murders of Jonbenet Ramsey and the Lindbergh baby." -- MJ

About Me

As all my posts state, I am an underground writer living in Texas. I am doing political blogging under a nom de plume for various reasons. I was born in 1956 in a small Texas town; I now live in a medium-large city. I have been writing my entire adult life, and have been published, both mainstream and underground. In my teens I was actually a libertarian-type conservative. Meeting Young Republican types in college was crucial to my being cured of that once and for all. At one point in my 20s I was something of a Trotskyite, but eventually became a more moderate progressive.
Since I started this blog and affiliated with other blogs, my writing has appeared in the USA Today, CNN and Reuters online editions, in Buzzflash.com, Crooks and Liars, and a number of other popular sites. My invaluable mentors have been Marc McDonald at BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, and Blue Girl of They Gave Us a Republic and other fine blogs.
In keeping with anonymity, this is all I should say.

See "Manifesto Joe's Great Moments in Conservative History, Chapter 1"

Favorite progressive movies

Mister Roberts -- see January 2009 post.

The Big Parade, The Crowd, Our Daily Bread, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Seven Days in May, Dr. Strangelove, The Grapes of Wrath, Silkwood, Salt of the Earth, Born on the Fourth of July, A Face in the Crowd, The Manchurian Candidate, Easy Rider, Chinatown, Reds, The Naked and the Dead.

Fear on Trial.

Open City, Seven Beauties, Swept Away, The Bicycle Thief, Grand Illusion, Fury, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremburg, Pressure Point, The President's Analyst, From Here to Eternity, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Milagro Beanfield War, Native Son, Bob Roberts, There Will Be Blood.

Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Hombre, Cool Hand Luke, Pan's Labyrinth, Network, Cutter's Way, All Quiet on the Western Front, Twelve Angry Men, Matewan, Return of the Seacaucus Seven, American History X, Putney Swope, The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night, Norma Rae, North Country.